Economics and Quantitative Analysis: Evaluating the Relationship Between Retention and Graduation Rates in Online College Students

Running head: ECONOMICS AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
Economics And Quantitative Analysis
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Course ID

1ECONOMICS AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Purpose of the report..................................................................................................................2
Background of the study............................................................................................................2
Methodology..............................................................................................................................2
Analysis of result........................................................................................................................3
a) Descriptive statistics..........................................................................................................3
b) Scatter diagram..................................................................................................................4
c. Regression estimate............................................................................................................5
d. Regression of graduation rate on retention rate.................................................................5
e. Association between graduation rate and attention rate.....................................................6
f. Goodness of fit....................................................................................................................6
g. South University.................................................................................................................6
h. University of Phoenix........................................................................................................7
Discussion..................................................................................................................................7
Recommendation........................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

2ECONOMICS AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
Purpose of the report
. Retention rate represents the percentage of students who continue their education in
the institute. Graduation rate is the percentage of students completing specific graduation
degree (Olbrecht, Romano and Teigen 2016). The main purpose of this report is to evaluate
the relationship between retention and graduation rate for online college students. More
specifically, the report aims to find how retention rate influences graduation rate.
Background of the study
In the field of education, retention rate and graduation rate are the two important
concept. Retention refers to a situation where students continue their studies until successful
completion. It is defined as the strategies and effort to identify and anticipate need of the
students prior to enrollment to higher studies (Pike and Graunke 2015). Graduation rate on
the other hand refers to the rate of completion of graduation degree in the university.
Retention rate likely to have a positive impact on higher studies and hence increases
graduation rates. This is because high retention rate helps to connect high school student to
academically challenging and learning environment. The proposed relation between retention
and graduation encourage economist to undertake different studies in this field (Raju and
Schumacker 2015). Policymaker are particularly interested in evaluating the relationship and
design strategy for student retention accordingly.
Methodology
The paper employs quantitative data analysis method to estimate the relation between
retention and graduation rate. The quantitative data analysis method transforms raw numbers
into meaningful data by application of critical and rational thinking. Such an approach is used
in order to find evidences for either accepting or rejecting hypotheses (Brannen 2017). Data
has been provided for retention and graduation rate of twenty-nine online colleges in United